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Robert “Buck” Fausett was a 36-year-old major-league rookie who finished his brief time in the big leagues as the answer to a trivia question: “Who was the only major-league pitcher ever to be relieved by a 15-year-old?” But don’t define Fausett as a baseball player by his .097 average in 13 major-league games (most of […]

As a player on the great New York Yankees teams of the 1950s and later as a manager with five different major-league clubs, Billy Martin was known to be brash, bold, and fearless. He played the game hard and made no excuses for the way he handled himself on or off the field. Many people, […]

Skeeter Newsome was a “mighty handy young man.” That’s how a Boston Herald headline writer described him in 1941. He was a shortstop (appearing in 12 seasons at the position, for a total of 902 games), second baseman (9 seasons, 149 games), and third baseman (8 seasons, 49 games). He even played a game in […]

Being a member of the umpiring staff of the 1901 American League has earned Jack Haskell an entry in modern-day baseball reference works. But that one-season tour of duty represents only a short chapter in the life of an outsized character who embodied a species now vanished from the baseball landscape: the hometown minor league […]

From 1950 to 1955, Robin Roberts was the top right-hander in the National League while pitching for the Philadelphia Phillies. For most of the remainder of his 18-year career, he was a crafty veteran who had a remarkable resurgence with the Baltimore Orioles. Either way, he would go out, take his turn on the mound […]

“Eddie Morris, chubby little commodore of the Massachusetts Bay Yachting Association, recently had a Bosch radio receiving set installed in his power cruiser by the Motor Parts Company of 106 Brookline Avenue. Eddie is well pleased with the performance of the set, as it enables him to keep in touch with Fred Hoey at the […]

Around the time that Robert Zimmerman, a/k/a Bob Dylan, left Minnesota to start the world of music a-changin’, Jerry Zimmerman arrived there to play for the Twins. And although Jerry could only hit a home run if the ball was blowing in the wind (three career homers), he provided steady defense and a relaxing clubhouse […]

Notre Dame’s Norwood Gibson pitched four years in the major leagues, all four of them for the Boston Americans. He was part of back-to-back pennant-winning teams in 1903 and 1904. He didn’t pitch at all in the 1903 World Series, against the Pittsburgh Pirates, and there was no World Series in 1904 because the New […]

On his 18th birthday, righty Chris Haughey appeared in his only major-league game, pitching for the Brooklyn Dodgers on October 3, 1943. He appears to be one of only three players in big-league history whose lone appearance came on his birthday.1 It was a Sunday afternoon game in Cincinnati, the last game of the season. […]

In the Roaring Twenties a new breed of coed sprouted on college campuses across the nation. She smoked, drank, and danced the night away at fraternity parties. She cut her hair, wore make-up, and was a gleeful participant in panty raids. She was giddy, was often called a flapper, and could be persuaded to engage […]

St. Louis merchant and businessman Hugo Duesenberg died on February 14, 1941, and his passing was noted by the Post-Dispatch in a brief item that listed a wife and five children as survivors. No mention was made of the notorious act thirty-four years earlier that had made headlines all across the country. Perhaps that is just as […]

After having been traded from the Philadelphia Phillies to the Cincinnati Reds in late May 1952 and making nine appearances in June with disappointing results, Bubba Church was looking for a positive turnaround in his season. He needed a good outing to boost his confidence. With two fine seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies under his […]

“[He] pitched with devastating speed, his curves breaking fast and baffling the best of the Cubs hitters,” gushed the Associated Press after Dizzy Dean’s record breaking performance.1 The 23-year-old Cardinals hurler fanned 17 to set a post-1900 record for most strikeouts in a game. St. Louis sportswriter L.C. Davis exulted that “the Great Dean proceeded […]

The September 24, 1920, edition of the Akron Beacon Journal blared the following headline across its sports section: “Ban Johnson Called to Stand Today; Tell Plot Against Chicago.” Johnson, the American League president, was testifying before a Cook County (Chicago) grand jury about a plot to blackmail Chicago White Sox players. Johnson predicted that the […]

The Detroit Tigers hosted the visiting Red Sox at Briggs Stadium for a Friday afternoon game. The Red Sox had split a doubleheader in Cleveland the day before and were 6½ games out of first place. The Tigers had lost at home to the first-place Yankees, whom they trailed by 15 games. Boston was in […]

Through 2019 the New York Yankees have played in 225 World Series games. On October 5, 1921, they appeared in their first, against the New York Giants. This was the first time the entire World Series was played in one ballpark; the venue was the Polo Grounds.1 An article in the Washington Post described the […]

“Zero hits and 50,000 cheers.”1 That’s the best way to describe what took place on June 28, 2008, in a game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim at Dodger Stadium. Los Angeles manager Joe Torre described the game as “about as bizarre as you can get”2 but added, “It […]

After the All-Star break in 1949, the Cleveland Indians opened the second half of the season with a 13-game homestand against the American League’s Eastern clubs: the Philadelphia Athletics, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, and Washington Senators. The Indians, who had won eight of their last nine games going into the break, were 44-32 […]

The Pirates were fresh off winning the 1960 World Series in one of the most exciting games ever. The good feeling bled over for a while; on May 24, 1961, they were 20-13, in second place, only one game out of first. But then they lost five in a row, fell into fourth place, and […]

The New York Highlanders had come quickly, rushing into the American League Grounds without a chance to change into their home uniforms. They had been expected earlier that Friday but a train wreck near Terre Haute, Indiana, delayed their return from St. Louis and they did not arrive in New York until noon.1 They would […]

After three consecutive seasons of finishing in second place in the National League, the 1921 New York Giants captured the pennant.1 The Giants began the season by splitting their first 12 games and then won 19 of 26 from April 30 to May 28. Further, they were victorious in 16 of 20 games played at […]

One of the California Angels’ shortcomings in 1992 was a lack of production from their cleanup hitters. As the season trudged into August and the Angels sat 12 games below .500, interim manager John Wathan thought of a new way to try to get some production from the fourth slot in the lineup—bring up the […]

Hartford, Connecticut, is among the baseball markets that has found new life in the flashy, merchandise- and promotion-driven minor-league climate of the twenty-first century. Since 2016 the city has hosted the Hartford Yard Goats, a Colorado Rockies affiliate in the Double-A Eastern League.1 The Yard Goats touch all the bases of modern minor-league ball — […]

This article was originally published in “The First Negro League Champion: The 1920 Chicago American Giants” (SABR, 2022).   Rube Foster’s Chicago American Giants played home games at Schorling Park in Chicago (NoirTech Research, Inc.)   The arc of the history of the Chicago American Giants follows closely with the arc of Black and Negro […]